


Waking Up

by thevoiceoflightcity



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (TV Movie 1996)
Genre: Agender Character, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Regeneration, eight bby, ey's so confused, oh right, short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 02:57:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8384578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thevoiceoflightcity/pseuds/thevoiceoflightcity
Summary: Ey wakes up, and it's cold and dark and the room is very small, and ey's not entirely sure if ey's alive or not, and ey's scared. (Eight's regeneration, from eir perspective.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Ey/em for the Doctor, again. (Ey's nonbinary, my profile has the explanation, I'm getting sick of this disclaimer.) 
> 
> Also: not entirely sure about the rating, because ey did kind of just die, and in an extremely traumatizing way at that, but this in itself is fairly harmless?

Ey dies, and then ey wakes up. 

That much, at least, is fairly clear. Everything hurts and everything’s wrong and ey can’t think through the cold-sharp-wrong-blue fire in eir head, but ey is awake. It’s the rest of it that’s a bit harder to pin down. 

(i’m not human | the master is | chris cwej | i’ve been | you can’t i’m not human | i )

...It’s cold, and dark, and eir big toe hurts. 

Ey can’t _think_. Eir head is utterly and completely empty in a new and unfamiliar way, a great white space still flickering with blue light, lightning and slow-but-insistent fear. The metal underneath em is cold, and the sheet is white, and the air tastes like latetwentiethcentury. _Morgue,_ ey thinks, and _around 2000 humanian era,_ and america, earth, and then a quiet-lost _how do i know that._

Ey feels like ey should get up, so ey does, pushing emself off the slab. The room is very small and very cold and still smells of rotten blue artron energy, regeneration-gone-wrong (what-is-that?) It feels like a prison, a cage, suddenly. Ey doesn’t like it, ey can feel eir hearts accelerating and ey can’t seem to slow them down. There’s a thin slit of light that isn’t blue, shining into eir eyes, and ey wants it; ey wants _out._

Ey wants out. Ey has a vague idea that _out_ is in that direction. Eir head hurts. There’s a nasty paradox somewhere in the vicinity and it’s like ice between eir teeth, a constant white-noise whine at the back of eir empty head. Ey doesn’t like it, ey wants to get away, ey wants to get out, ey wants to go home (orange skies? something) and ey is cold and the room is small and ey wants want out - 

Oh look, ey thinks, the door’s open. 

There’s a primitive behind the door. No, wait, what are they called, humans? It’s something like that, anyway. It - he? ey can’t really tell, whatever species it is it’s a telepathic dead spot, no information coming through. Regardless, it’s staring at em, rather confusedly, which is a bit disconcerting. Ey wonders if ey’s naked, humans have problems with that sort of thing, but ey’s got a sheet thing, so that’s all right then. 

The human runs away. Ey shuffles after it, unsure, and then loses track of its timeline somewhere halfway down a hallway and contents emself with humming instead. 

It’s a nice song. Ey wonders what it’s called. Puccini? No, that’s something else, isn’t it. 

The hospital is awfully dark (hospital?) and still cold. There are signs on the walls - or at least, ey’s assuming they’re signs - but they don’t have any writing on them, no words, no letters, just meaningless scribbles full of angles and corners. 

Ey thinks for a bit, and decides it must be night. And stormy, which means the rumbling in the background is probably thunder (although it could also be waves, or underground trains, or that noise stars make right before they supernova.) Ey’s on Earth, isn’t ey. Ey wonders where that is. 

No. No. English. That was the signs. Gallifreyan - ey wouldn’t find Gallifreyan here. Especially not Circular, and especially not Old High Gallifreyan. Ey’s not even supposed to speak Old High Gallifreyan, it’s some kind of glitch, only Koschei knows about it, it’s their secret. 

Now, if ey only knew who that was, then ey might be getting somewhere. 

Gallifreyan. Ey hums the word, in eir head, and then ey loses it again. English, then, that’s shorter, easier to keep hold of. Ey speaks English. Ey speaks everything, and the TARDIS-in-eir-mind (warm concern in the icy hallways, a soft presence, but she can’t help him not now) the TARDIS translates, she’s good at that. 

No. What. The thought is lost again, and the warm thing at the back of eir head hums worry but doesn’t intervene.

Words. English. Ey could try forming coherent concepts, for once, ey supposes. This meaningless state is getting to be a bit tedious. 

Ey turns, and ey - 

_jumps,_ nearly screams, the fifty faces staring back at ey jump too, things like mirrors - no, they are mirrors - 

Something colder than terror freezes in eir throat. Ey doesn’t recognize the face in the mirrors. Ey recognizes what mirrors are, ey knows how they work, ey is well aware that the face ey is looking at is eirs, but ey _doesn’t recognize it._ There is no subtle flicker of memory, no spark of knowledge ey shouldn’t know, no vague awareness or understanding. Just flat, disinterested nothing. Ey has never seen the face in the mirror before, and ey’s _sure_ of that, the only thing ey _is_ but it’s eir face - eir hearts stutter and choke - 

Ey falls to eir knees, and ey would bury eir face in eir hands but eir hands won’t move, nothing moves, the entire world out of joint - dislocated - burning with a _newness,_ a rawness, that should be familiar (ey’s done this before but not like _this_ ) but isn’t, rotten-blue still sparking behind eir eyes where ey feels sure it should be gold, and ey doesn’t know why, ey doesn’t understand, some lost connection somewhere in eir head. 

English. Concepts. Words. And suddenly everything flares like the ice-blue light, flashing through the air, and the dam breaks - the words spill - 

_who - am - i ?_

Ey cries. 


End file.
